Washington failed miserably to take action on climate change this year. The nation's best hope is California, which made a historic leap forward last week when its Air Resources Board approved a broad-based cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.

It was no simple task to get here. After the Legislature passed AB32, the state contended with enormous pressure to scale or roll it back.

The forces against change made all of the same arguments that they've made in Washington and all over the world - that fighting climate change will cost too much in taxes and jobs, that it's unfair to gas and oil companies, and that it's not the right time (and will never be the right time) to implement new regulations.

Californians were unimpressed by all of those arguments. Proposition 23, which would have suspended AB32, was defeated in November. And by voting 9-1 on the plan despite heavy industry lobbying, the board paved the way for California to be a leader, yet again, on a crucial issue.